BBH01 - Cimarron Rose by James Lee Burke Read Free Book Online Page B

shirt were spotted with mud, his arms knotted with muscle as
he lifted a rake-load of dripping weeds to the edge of the ditch.
    'Garland Moon's out. I want you to be careful,' I
said.
    'Last night a Mexican in the poolroom offered me
five-hundred dollars to drive a load of lumber down to Piedras Negras.'
    'What are you doing in the poolroom?'
    'Just messin' around.'
    'Yeah, they only sell soda pop in there, too. Why's
this Mexican so generous to you?'
    'He's got a furniture factory down there. He cain't
drive long distances 'cause he's got kidney trouble or something. He
said I might get on reg'lar.'
    'You leave this county, Lucas, you go back to jail
and you stay there.'
    'You ain't got to get mad about it. I was just
telling you what the guy said.'
    'You thought anymore about college for next fall?'
    'I was just never any good at schoolwork, Mr
Holland.'
    'Will you call me Billy Bob?'
    'My dad don't allow it.'
    I walked back to my car. The sun was yellow and pale
with mist behind Vernon Smothers's house. He stood on his porch in work
boots and cut-off GI fatigues and a sleeveless denim shirt that was
washed as thin as Kleenex.
    'You out here about Moon?' he asked.
    'He's been known to nurse a grievance,' I answered.
    'He puts a foot on my land, I'll blow it off.'
    'You'll end up doing his time, then.'
    'I busted my oil pan on your back road yesterday.
You'll owe me about seventy-five dollars for the weld job,' he said,
and went back inside his house and let the screen slam behind him.
     
    Just before lunchtime, my secretary
buzzed the
intercom.
    'There's a man here who won't give his name, Billy
Bob,' she said.
    'Does he have on a blue serge suit?'
    'Yes.'
    'I'll be right out.'
    I opened my door. Garland T. Moon sat in a chair, a
hunting magazine folded back to ads that showed mail-order guns and
knives for sale. He wore shiny tan boots that were made from plastic,
and a canary yellow shirt printed with redbirds, with the collar
flattened outside his suit coat.
    'Come in,' I said.
    My secretary looked at me, trying to read my face.
    'I'm going to take my lunch hour a little late
today,' she said.
    'Why don't you go now, Kate? Bring me an order of
enchiladas and a root beer. You want something, Garland?'
    His lips were as red as a clown's when he smiled,
his head slightly tilted, as though the question were full of tangled
wire.
    He walked past me without answering. I could smell
an odor like lye soap and sweat on his body. I closed the door, turned
the key in the lock, and put the key in my watch pocket.
    'What are you doin?' he said.
    I sat behind my desk, smiled up at him, my eyes not
quite focusing on him. I scratched the back of my hand.
    'I asked you what you're doing,' he said.
    'I think you're a lucky man. I think you ought to
get out of town.'
    'Why'd you lock the door?'
    'I don't like to be disturbed.'
    One side of his face seemed to wrinkle, his small
blue eye watering, as though irritated by smoke. He was seated now, his
thighs and hard buttocks flexed against the plastic bottom of the chair.
    'I want to hire you. To file a suit. They took a
cattle prod to me. They put it all over my private parts,' he said.
    'My client's deposition has no meaning for you now.
You're home free on murder beefs in two states. I wouldn't complicate
my life at this point.'
    'That little bitch they planted in the cell, what's
his name, Lucas Smothers, he told y'all a mess of lies. I never had no
such conversation with Jimmy Cole. I been jailing too long to do
something like that.'
    I looked at the backs of my fingers on top of the
desk blotter. I could hear the minute hand on my wall clock click into
the noon position. Outside the window, the oak trees were a deep green
against the yellow sandstone of the courthouse.
    'Don't misjudge your opponent, sir,'
    'I said.
    'I know all about you. But you don't know the first
thing about me. Me and my twin brother was in a place where they
switched your legs raw just because you spilled your